Gloria Steinem: A Life in American History

This book details the life and activism of Gloria Steinem, using her life as a lens through which readers can examine the evolution of women’s rights in the United States over the past half-century.

This work traces the life and career of feminist activist Gloria Steinem, providing an examination of her life and her efforts to further equal opportunity among all people, especially women, in the United States from the second half of the 20th century to the present. It follows Steinem in a primarily chronological fashion to best convey the impact of her own efforts as well as the changing nature of women’s status in American society during Steinem’s half-century as an active reformer and public figure. The book notably includes her work with Ms. Magazine and details of her personal life.

This book’s wider coverage of Steinem’s life, from her early childhood to the present, adds to previous works, which tend to stop with the end of the heyday of the women’s movement and the rise of the Conservative movement in the early 1980s. With one of the defining aspects of Steinem’s work being her lifelong commitment to women’s rights and human equality, the treatment of her whole life helps readers understand the full extent of both her commitment and impact.

More than just a biography, this book presents a life that is at once an engine for the change Gloria Steinem sought to achieve and an example and inspiration for future activists

The text offers lessons from the past as guidance for the future

20 sidebars provide intriguing details about Steinem’s life and accomplishments

Five primary source documents give readers a sense of Steinem’s powerful voice and her ability to speak truth to power